Murder & Reputation

Your actions follow you. Killing other players carries a reputation cost - but only in the places where the law reaches.

Overview

Perilous Legends keeps the classic Ultima Online idea that killing other players marks you. Rack up enough murders and your reputation turns against you. The rules for how that count is earned are deliberately tight and predictable, and there are whole regions of the map where the count simply does not apply.

The point of the system is that reputation is a real, lasting consequence - not a number you can farm, inflate, or dodge with a technicality. Understand exactly what does and does not add to your count and you will always know where you stand.

How Murder Counts Work

The murder count follows two hard rules, and they do not bend:

1. A kill gives exactly one murder count. It does not matter how the kill happened, how many times you had fought that person, or how brutal the situation was. One player death at your hands is one long-term murder count. Nothing stacks extra counts onto a single kill.
2. Only killing players counts. See below - nothing else in the world can add to your murder total.

Because the count is capped at one per kill and only comes from players, you can always reason about your own reputation. There are no hidden multipliers and no surprise sources. Cross 5 long-term counts and your name turns red - you are a murderer, with the costs that come with it (see below).

Players Only

Murder counts are issued for killing players, and players only. They are never given for killing a pet, a mount, an NPC, or a monster, no matter how harsh the act might feel. Slaughtering someone's pack animal, gunning down a hireling, or clearing a room of mobs does not touch your murder count.

This matters most around things like pack animals on trade routes. Destroying the animal itself is not a murder. If you want to stop a hauler and take what they are carrying, the reputation cost only appears when you actually kill the player - which is the one standard count the rules allow.

The Cost of Being Red

Going red is not just a color. On PL the penalties are specific and they bite:

• Dying is expensive. A murderer with more than 5 counts who wants to resurrect pays 1,000 gold for every count over 5, pulled straight from the bank (the gold feeds the Perilous Lottery pot). Pay it and your counts drop back to 5.
• Or swear off violence. Can't afford the fee? You can instead accept a 3 real-day vow of Pacifism - you cannot take aggressive action against innocents for those days (you can still fight reds, greys and oranges, and defend yourself) - and your counts drop to 5 either way.
• Vendors charge you double. Murderers can still shop, but pay twice the going rate.
• You are fair game in town. Guards will not cut you down just for being red, but they also will not protect you - any player can attack a red in town without being flagged criminal for it.

The threshold to turn red is 5 long-term counts, and the resurrection penalty scales per count above that. These numbers are set on the server and are the ones a red player will feel directly; if they are ever retuned, the live values are what your bank balance shows.

Lawless Zones

Large parts of the map are lawless, and lawless on Perilous Legends means something specific. Inside a lawless zone:

• Everyone is flagged grey. Not criminal - grey. You are freely attackable by anyone and you can freely attack anyone, but no criminal flag is set on you for it.
• Murder counts do not exist there. Killing another player inside a lawless zone adds nothing to your long-term count. For your reputation, the kill never happened.
• Everything else is normal. Damage, full-loot corpses, and standard combat all work as usual. There are no special protections.

Lawless covers all of the ocean (every water tile, and aboard ship) and Tortuga with its satellite islands. The rest of the world - towns, overland routes, and the dungeons (Deceit, Despise, Destard) - is not lawless and keeps full murder counts. Because everyone in a lawless zone is visibly grey to each other, you can read the rules straight off the screen: grey everywhere means the gloves are off and nobody is keeping score. Full detail lives on the Lawless Zones page.

Two PvP Rulesets

Put those two facts together and the world naturally splits into two styles of PvP.

What This Means For You

• Before you throw the first blow overland or in a dungeon, remember that a player kill is a permanent mark. Choose your fights.
• On the ocean and at Tortuga, kills are consequence-free - expect that everyone around you knows it.
• Grey players in a lawless zone are telling you the rules by their color. Read it before you wade in.
• If you do go red, keep gold in the bank - the resurrection fee comes out of it, and the alternative is three days unable to strike first.
• Want to fight with zero reputation risk at all? Use the scheduled PvP Events, which are instanced and gear-safe.